


what we've been through to survive (do we get better with time?)

by iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid



Series: revengers AU: thanos doesn't show up immediately and ruin everything [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: AU: Thanos doesn't show up immediately to ruin everything, Brothers, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), The Revengers - Freeform, Thorsweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 16:18:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17267339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid/pseuds/iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid
Summary: The first new child is born on the Statesman.Thor just wants to help. Loki would probably prefer not to.[ Based on the Thorsweek promptChild]





	what we've been through to survive (do we get better with time?)

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of my contributions to [_thorsweek_](https://thorsweek.tumblr.com/), a seven day celebration of Thor. I wanted to write some semi-lighthearted content centered on the Revengers, because let's be honest, with how the MCU's going right now our boy could use a little fluff.
> 
> So we're either assumming a hefty time gap before Thanos' arrival, or just straight up pretending he doesn't exist. Reader's choice. Other fics in this vein (both Thorsweek contributions and others) can be found my works with the tag, AU: Thanos doesn't show up immediately to ruin everything.

There are hardly any healers left among them.

That much has been apparent since, oh, perhaps twenty minutes following the destruction of the Asgard — _the planet,_ Thor has to remind himself, always has to remind himself, _the destruction of the planet, not of Asgard, because Asgard is still here, in these halls, on this ship, safe._ He has to keep reminding himself of that or he’s likely to go mad.

Still. A lot of good _that_ kind of thinking does for them, really, a lot of good it _did,_ in that first day when half the ship’s inhabitants were battle weary and various degrees of wounded and every single one of them, wounded or not, was traumatized and terrified and homeless and grieving.

The first twenty-four hours following Ragnarok still feels like a blur.

Valkyrie instantly proved herself useful in containing the Hulk, keeping him preoccupied and well entertained while the rest of them set about organizing what was left of Asgard, assigning sleeping quarters on the ship, rationing food and water, checking and double checking and triple checking that the ship itself was running in peak condition and headed in the proper direction.

The healers — the total _three_ of them that survived — had their hands full within seconds.

Wounds needed tending, wounds that Hela’s army spared no expense in delivering, and no one on board wanted to _consider_ the possibility of losing even one more Asgardian to Hela’s attack. Whoever survived the initial battle was going to survive the week. Period. So the healers worked tirelessly, all through the first night and the following day.

Thor did what he could for them. He did nearly all the heavy lifting, offered words of encouragement, brought them extra rations, brushed off their attempts to treat _his_ wounds. And Loki, adding onto Thor’s initial astonishment that he stayed at all, offered whatever magic he had to spare, healed any wounds he felt qualified to heal. Thor and Valkyrie both attempted no less than five times to sway the Hulk to return Banner to them, because Thor figured that _one_ of those seven PhD’s must have involved some sort of medicinal training, but that particular route proved to be futile.

That day, Thor did not sleep until his body no longer gave him the choice, until he collapsed fully dressed into one of the flimsy spare cots in the ship’s engine room and succumbed to a blissfully dreamless sleep.

When he woke, his chest plate and boots had been removed, his wounds semi-healed by magic, the nearly debilitating burn that had once split through the entire right side of his head dulled to a low throb. And his brother was fast asleep in the cot beside him, looking every bit as worn out as Thor felt.

It was a trying twenty-four hours for all of them, but it was not without its victories. Even with only three professional healers and one sorcerer with precious little healing experience, they did not lose anyone else. Not one single person.

The trials have kept on coming, of course. Engine problems, bickering between citizens that has often escalated to all-out brawls, the challenge of organizing their quickly dwindling food stores, sicknesses cropping up amongst the people. Diplomacy with the planets they’ve passed has proven to be the greatest headache of them all.

They’ve managed, though. Thor’s managed.

But _this?_

This challenge is… new. Perhaps not as daunting as the others, not really, but in the moment it certainly feels as such.

“You’re certain there’s nothing to be done for her?”

“I’m certain, my King, I—” the young healer, Hertha, attempts to explain before her voice is drowned out by a horrible scream that rends through the healing ward, and Thor can’t help but cringe at the sound of it. Hertha hardly seems phased. Thor knows that only comes of having been desensitized to the sounds of pain over the last few weeks, but he still doesn’t understand how she does it. He can never seem to grow accustomed to it.

Hertha continues, “We’ve already searched everywhere for something to ease her pain, and there’s simply nothing suitable.”

Thor casts a nervous glance toward the bed. Partially concealed behind a curtain, he can see Hertha’s patient clutching the bed frame in a white-knuckled grip, leaving sharp indents in the metal. Sweat beads on her skin, her cheeks flushed a deep red, her jaw clenched tight.

He should search the stores again. That’s his first thought, but he knows that it won’t be much help. Any sort of drugs the Grandmaster may have kept on this ship are without doubt _not_ the sort that should be given to this woman, not now.

But perhaps…

The idea comes to him in a flash, unexpectedly, and he latches onto it with swift desperation.

“I think— I think I may know something that can help her,” Thor says. He distractedly pats Hertha on the shoulder and turns on his heel, departing without another word.

He starts off at a jog through the ship’s halls. He ducks his head into the kitchens as he passes them, then the engine room, then checks a few of the sleeping quarters whose doors are open. He sprints through the cockpit, then doubles back through the halls to the kitchens again.

It’s ten minutes or so into his search that he _finally_ finds his brother, of all places, in one of the storage chambers.

Loki lies awkwardly upon the sill of a huge circular window, his back pressed along the bottom curve of the ledge, his feet propped up on the window’s side, his hair spilling off the window ledge to nearly brush against the floor. A book floats above him of its own accord, the green glow of the tome standing stark against the black backdrop of space beyond the window.

As Thor barrels through the door in a breathless whirlwind, though, Loki jumps, startled, and the glow of the book dissipates to let it fall to the floor with a _thunk._  He scrambles to sit up, eyes wide.

 _“Norns,_ Thor, what in the—?”

“Need your help,” Thor breathes, gesturing with a nod behind him. “The healing ward.”

Loki’s face instantly loses a shade, and he’s on his feet in half a heartbeat. The urgency in Thor’s voice, apparently, is enough to dispel any other complaints or questions he may have had, and as Thor turns and starts running down the hall back toward Hertha’s ward, he hears Loki’s hurried footsteps following behind.

“What is it?” Loki asks, already out of breath as they grow closer. “Is someone—?”

His question is cut off by yet another scream from within the healing ward, a cry that’s as strangled and strained as all the ones that came before it, and Thor heart physically aches with sympathy at the sound. He and Loki both skid to a halt mid-sprint outside the door of the healing ward.

Loki doesn’t wait for any further explanation. He shoves past Thor to get inside, _seiðr_ already gathering like smoke at his fingertips, seeping up his sleeves until his forearms shimmer with magic, and Thor follows close behind, anxiety building in his gut.

When Loki reaches the source of the pained screams, though, he stops.

Thor nearly runs straight into his brother’s back, but he avoids a collision at the last second. There’s a pause, a beat of stillness, and then Loki turns on his heel and levels Thor with a look that he’s seen so many times in his life it’s almost jarring to see again. The _seiðr_ fades from his arms, and he grabs Thor by the front of his leathers and shoves him back out through the doorway. Thor’s too startled to do anything but comply, stumbling out backwards into the hall.

“What?” Thor asks.

Loki rolls his eyes, then lifts a hand and smacks Thor in the side of the head.

 _“Ow,_ what was—?”

“Are you joking?” Loki hisses. “You had me thinking someone was _dying.”_

Another scream rips through the healing ward, and Thor wildly gestures toward the room to defend himself. “Does she not sound like she is?”

“Because she’s having a _child,_ you absolute—” Loki cuts himself off, pinching the bridge of his nose and evidently choosing not to say what, exactly, he thinks Thor absolutely is. Instead he mutters, “Tell me you did not drag me here in the middle of the night, in a near panic, to attend a _childbirth.”_

“She’s in pain.”

“Of course she is,” Loki says, again in a near hiss, lifting his head from his hand to shoot another of those incredulous looks at Thor. “That’s what having a child is _like._ Did you not attend a single childbirth on Asgard? Not once? Or, hell, even one on Midgard?”

“Obviously, but—”

“They’re _always_ in pain, and nine out of ten times the pain means absolutely nothing, and they have the child with hardly a complication.”

“Nine out of ten times,” Thor repeats, and Loki exhales through his nose, rolling his eyes again.

“She’s fine, brother,” he insists, low enough that neither Hertha nor her patient can hear. “This has only been happening since _literally_ the dawn of time.”

“Loki, please,” Thor says. He glances over Loki’s shoulder at the doorway again and gulps. “If I could do it myself, I would. She’s in quite a lot of pain, and we’ve got nothing in the way of medicine on this ship that could dull it. And she’s…”

His voice trails off, and Loki’s brow creases.

“She’s what, Thor?”

Thor heaves a sigh. The list is quite a long one. She’s young, she’s never had a child before, she’s frightened, she’s about to give birth to the first new citizen of Asgard since the destruction of their Realm, and she couldn’t have possibly imagined, months ago, that _this_ was where her child was going to take his first breath.

But most importantly—

“She’s alone,” he admits quietly. “Her husband wasn’t on board when we left Asgard. Nor were her parents.”

He sees the instant his meaning clicks, sees the instant that all the fight goes out of his brother like air expelled from a balloon. Loki’s shoulders slump, and he looks away at some vague point behind Thor, chewing on his cheek.

They both harbor some guilt over how the fight with Hela ended, even knowing full well that it was the only way to save Asgard. Thor hides the guilt as best he can — that is to say, not very well — and Loki hides it far more effectively than he does, but regardless, Thor knows the guilt is there. That was their home, the only home either of them had ever known, however strongly Loki may have tried to reject it time and time again.

And it would be difficult enough to brush off a guilt like that _without_ being surrounded by the rest of Asgard’s lost, grieving citizens day in and day out.

Loki groans and runs a hand over his face. “Alright. Fine. I’ll try.”

“Thank you,” Thor says with a sigh of relief. “I—”

“No. You, shush. _Shh,”_ Loki cuts in with an irritable glare, holding up his hand with the tips of his fingers pressed together, just in case the shushing wasn’t enough. “I said I’ll _try.”_

Loki turns without another word and reenters the ward, Thor close at his heels, and they find Hertha lightly dabbing a cloth on her patient’s forehead, murmuring instructions to control her breathing.

The woman looks up as they enter the room, and Loki all but _actually_ transforms before Thor’s eyes. Gone is the miserably sullen look on his face, gone is the annoyed set of his jaw, and he opens his hands with a welcoming smile. His eyes sweep over the monitor by the bed, where some of the woman’s and her baby’s vitals are listed in Sakaar’s strange lettering — along with the woman’s name — but his eyes fall on the ailing woman half a second later, as if she was all he needed to see.

“Gyda,” he says, like he knew her name right from the start. “How are you faring?”

The woman, Gyda, opens her mouth to answer, but it seems she can’t quite get the words out. She cringes, tightening her grip on the bed frame.

Hertha answers for her. “My Prince,” she says with a nod toward Loki and then another toward Thor. “My King. The baby is healthy and should arrive with no serious complications.” She gestures toward the monitor. “His heartbeat is strong already. It shouldn’t be long now.”

Without warning, the bed frame then gives beneath Gyda’s grip, the metal bar snapping in two.

“Er— thank you,” Thor says to Hertha with a smile, and he carefully circles the bed, stepping over wires that connect to monitors and medical equipment whose purposes he cannot even pretend to understand. He lowers himself to a crouch by the woman’s bedside and softly says, “Lady Gyda.”

She meets Thor’s gaze and gives a shaky smile, but all she can manage to say is, “My—my King—”

“It’s alright, you’re doing wonderfully,” Thor tells her, and it’s the truth. He offers his own hand in place of the now broken bed frame, and Gyda instantly takes hold of it, squeezing his fingers with almost surprising strength. Thor covers her hand in both of his, and he says, “If it’s alright with you, we’d like to help make this less trying for you. Prince Loki would use his magic to lessen some of your pain, if you’ll allow it.”

Gyda glances over his shoulder at Loki, and for a moment, it almost looks like she might insist on powering through. But then another bout of pain twists her eyes shut, reddens her face, and her grip tightens on Thor’s fingers to the point that he thinks he may be likely to lose feeling in them rather quickly if she keeps it up.

She looks up at Loki then, and gives a hurried, shaking nod.

 

* * *

 

Contrary to what Loki may have thought, Thor _had_ seen his fair share of childbirths on Asgard, centuries ago, when he was too young to fully appreciate the seriousness of the occasion.

Today, when all is said and done, he finds himself still agreeing with his younger, more brash self. To an extent, at least. Childbirth is a painful, nasty business. It should be far easier on the mother, he’s always thought and still thinks; even as Loki stood behind the bed with _seiðr_ flowing from his fingertips into the woman’s temples, she still nearly broke the bones of Thor’s fingers, still looked like she was liable to pass out any moment. It took _hours,_ three miserable and exhausting hours, but with Hertha’s instruction Gyda finally gave birth to a very healthy, very _loudly_ squalling baby, and just like that — instantly, it seemed — her pain faded away. Her grip lessened on Thor’s hand. Loki stepped away, hesitant, still hovering for a moment in case his magic should be needed again.

And when Hertha placed the baby in his mother’s arms, Gyda looked for all the world like she was never in any pain to begin with.

Now, half an hour later, Gyda sleeps soundly on a freshly cleaned bed, and Hertha has hurriedly moved on to one of her other patients, a young teenager a few rooms away. Thor sits in the only chair in Gyda's room, her newborn baby swaddled in a blanket and tucked into the crook of his arm. The baby calmed down rather quickly after the birth, and now he’s every bit as fast asleep as his mother is.

“You know, there _is_ a small bed available for it to sleep in,” comes Loki’s voice from the doorway to one of the ward’s bathrooms, and Thor looks up to see his brother leaning against the doorframe, wiping his hands clean with a spare cloth.

Always the drama queen. His hands weren’t anywhere near the messier parts of the birth.

Thor shrugs, careful not to disrupt the baby, and he whispers, “He fell asleep here. What kind of monster would I be if I moved him now?”

At that, Loki gives a silent little laugh, and he rolls his eyes before returning his attention to his hands. “Mm-hmm.”

“Besides, I’m warmer than the bed will be,” Thor adds. “You made yourself useful with your magic, now it’s my turn.” And if to emphasize the point, he allows the faintest bit of electricity to tinge his remaining eye a light blue. The lightning warms him even further, that familiar heat swelling like a fire deep in his chest, and the baby curls up a bit more, one tiny hand gripping the edge of his blanket.

“Right,” Loki says. “I’m certain that’s the only reason.”

He finishes wiping off his hands, and balls up the cloth before dropping it in the wastebasket by his feet. Then he takes the few steps to close the distance between himself and the chair Thor’s sitting on, his arms crossed over his chest, and he leans in to look the baby over.

His nose wrinkles in apparent disapproval.

“It’s so _small.”_

Thor has to resist the urge to laugh lest he wake the baby. “I thought you’d seen childbirths before? How is that surprising to you?”

Loki shrugs, leaning back and straightening to his full height. “It’s been a while. And I never really…” he trails off, tilting his head, “... stayed, for this part.”

“Hmm. Well, babies are always smaller than you expect,” Thor says. He looks up at his brother — who is still staring down at the baby with a furrow in his brow like it’s the strangest thing he’s ever seen, like he didn’t just spend the last several hours helping to bring it into the world — and Thor is inevitably reminded of the first time he saw a baby the size of this one, a startingly tiny thing wrapped up exactly like this, tucked in his mother’s arms.

He shoves the thought away. Not the time.

“Do you want to know what she’s named him?” Thor asks.

Loki shrugs one shoulder, which Thor takes as acquiescence.

“Ragnar.”

“Really?” Loki asks in an incredulous whisper, raising an eyebrow, and he casts a sideways glance at the baby’s sleeping mother. “Why would she do that?”

“She said that she wants to remember where he came from,” Thor tells him, his eyes on Gyda’s peacefully sleeping form on the bed. He had almost shed tears when Gyda first said it to him, and now he finds a lump rising in his throat again, but he presses on nonetheless. “That she wants everyone to remember that Ragnarok wasn’t just an ending, but also a beginning.”

Thor glances up at Loki to find him staring down at the baby — or, _through_ the baby, really, judging by the far-off look in his eyes.

“That’s…” Loki whispers, “... fitting, I suppose.”

Thor nods, returning his gaze down to Ragnar, who hasn’t so much as made a peep this entire time.

“Asgard’s growing, brother,” Thor says. “In spite of everything.”

“Hmm. Yes, well,” Loki says. “If there’s one thing the Aesir have in excess, it’s spite. A little thing like the end of the world isn’t going to stop that.”

Thor smiles at that, lifting his free hand to adjust the blanket a bit more snugly around the baby’s head.

Loki stifles a yawn with the back of his hand. “Alright. I’m going to bed. Unless, of course, you’ve got another ailing pregnant woman hiding somewhere around here,” he says, and then he makes a face. “Hm. Actually, on second thought, _especially_ if you’ve got another ailing pregnant woman hiding somewhere around here. That was exhausting. And disgusting.”

Thor rolls his eyes — or, eye. That’s still difficult to get used to. “You poor thing,” he says to Loki without looking away from the baby. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you. Even more exhausting than it was for the mother, I imagine.”

“Oh, shut up,” Loki says, but there's no venom in his tone.

As he passes, Loki’s hand finds Thor’s shoulder. He pauses, and for a moment Thor thinks he's going to say something else, but instead he only gives Thor's shoulder a little squeeze. Then he’s out the door without another word.

“Goodnight, brother,” Thor calls after him, still quietly enough to avoid waking Gyda or little Ragnar. “And thank you.”

“Mm-hmm,” comes Loki’s voice from out in the hall.

And then Thor is left alone, sitting in the healing room ward with the sleeping baby and the baby's sleeping mother.

Thor looks up at Gyda again — absolutely exhausted, by the look of her, getting some much deserved rest — and then his gaze falls once more on the baby. Ragnar was born with a full head of dark brown hair like his mother’s, pressed in thin swooping curls against his little head. Earlier, when his eyes were open, Thor had noticed that they weren’t the same shade of brown as Gyda’s. Instead Ragnar had eyes that were lighter, almost green, and Thor hopes they’re the spitting image of what the baby’s father’s eyes once looked like.

Something to carry one more Asgardian with them, maybe, even if it’s only in memory.

Thor keeps looking down at the baby, frowning, chewing the inside of his cheek.

Ragnar may end up bearing some resemblance to his father, but he doesn’t _have_ a father. Nor does he have grandparents or aunts or uncles or siblings, just a tiny little family of two. Just him and Gyda.

But at the same time, Thor thinks, he’s just been born into a family of _hundreds._ Thor can just see it now, everyone on board fawning over their newest addition to Asgard, even the most hardened of them smiling and cooing at him like young maidens. Hell, the baby’s already done that much to Thor. Even _Loki_ had abandoned his usual callousness there, for the briefest of moments.

In his mind he sees the rest of them, too: Heimdall, who’s never hidden his fondness for children and likely sees Thor even now, having already added little Ragnar to his eternal watch, brought him under his protection as a citizen of Asgard. Bruce, once the Hulk finally elects to return him to them, teaching the baby about humans and their funny little customs. Even the Valkyrie, he imagines, would melt at the sight of him. She’d pretend otherwise, of course, but it’s all too easy to picture her dropping the facade and carrying Ragnar on her hip, telling him incredible stories of valiant battles that he’ll hardly understand a word of.

Thor can’t help smiling at the thought.

“Hello, Ragnar,” he whispers to the baby. “You don’t know this just yet, but you’re coming to Asgard at quite a difficult time. We’ve all lost much over the past few weeks.” He shifts the baby just barely; his arm is beginning to grow numb from lying still for such a long time, but he doesn’t dare fully move it. Not yet. He sighs. “You know, sometimes it feels like we’ve lost everything, but… well, we haven’t, have we? Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

He touches one finger to the tip of the baby’s nose, and Ragnar makes this adorable little face, his brow scrunching up, his tiny toothless mouth opening just a bit. But he doesn’t wake.

“We’ve lost quite a bit,” Thor says again. “But you’re the very first thing we’ve gained. I hope you’ll grow up knowing exactly how incredible that is, little one.”

Ragnar makes the face again, but this time it culminates in a sleepy little yawn. Thor lets out another sigh, and he looks up from the baby, his eyes falling on the little bed in the corner of the room that’s intended for the baby to use.

Maybe…

No, no, he’ll wait for the mother to wake up, at least. It would just be _rude_ to leave the baby alone while she sleeps, after all, without so much as a parting word. Wouldn’t it?

And so Thor shifts in his seat with a yawn of his own, making himself as comfortable as he reasonably can, settling Ragnar against his chest. His back will protest vehemently at this treatment in a few hours time, Thor has no doubt, but really, what else is he to do? He props his feet up on the still intact bottom rung of the bed’s frame, tilts his head back against the chair, and positions his elbow on the chair’s flimsy armrest so that his hand rests securely on Ragnar’s back.

The little heartbeat and soft breathing of Asgard’s newest member lulls him to sleep within minutes.


End file.
